On Thu 06 March 2014 03:42:09 Andrew Flegg wrote:
> On 28 February 2014 06:57, joerg Reisenweber <joerg@openmoko.org> wrote:
> > OK, you say HiFo is doing system administration on maemo servers now,
> > either you or some proxy? Fine, I'm pondering to step down from that
> > position then,
Maybe you missed the irony tags? Or did you purposely edit them out by picking
this quote without giving context?
For the record: I'm NOT fine with HiFo doing system administration. See below
for reasons, why.
And obviously 2/3 of council and all of core techstaff isn't as well. Core
techstaff (see below) actually isn't happy with how HiFo acted and still does
act, and mood is to rather stop volunteering in maemo than to participate in
what HiFo seems pushing to establish here. You already managed to alienate a
few maintainers and supporters who actually drew that consequence and
resigned.
>
> Joerg, on behalf of the Hildon Foundation Board, I'd like to thank you
> for your efforts in the continued operation of maemo.org since Nokia
> stepped back. Without your work, we wouldn't be here today; nor have a
> tech staff who has been able to pick up where Nemein left off.
>
> There has, unfortunately, been an air of aggravation between the
> Foundation and you for the past few months, something for which I
> don't want to ascribe any blame. The Board recognises that the
> relationship has degraded,
well, any good relations between me and HiFo never been a part of my job
description for the position as maemo administration manager. Regardless of
the lack of any 'official' mandatory relations between maemo admin manager and
HiFo, see below.
> and thinks the immediate and ongoing
> assistance you've provided with regards to maemo.org system
> administration has run its course,
You're free to think that. It's however neither relevant nor correct. See
below.
> as the tech staff team is now well
> established.
That's a severe misconception.
1) there is no "well established techstaff team", basically techstaff team
consists of three people: Xes, Falk, and me. Then we have a (much too small)
number of subsystem maintainers, like chemist (tmo) and Ivaylo (builder
complex) and Christian (repos), who are considered wider techstaff. It seems
this lack of understanding about such facts showing in HiFo's move and
statement here tells a lot about why HiFo shouldn't interfere with techstaff
duties and infra maintenance (which it nevertheless does *second* time here
and now, during a few weeks)
2) any such techstaff team basically doesn't have *any* business with HiFo -
thus *my* relation to HiFo as member and organizational lead of techstaff team
is absolutely irrelevant.
3) my role as maemo administration manager/coordinator is not only to lead
techstaff and to find and introduce new maintainers and sysops and coordinate
their activities, I'm also the one point of responsibility for "keeping the
keys", read: deciding and overseeing who gets access to maemo infra on which
level, and thus securing integrity of maemo.org and defending it from any
threat. This task isn't one that eventually is accomplished.
From a maemo community organizational perspective HiFo (or rather council and
you) once were responsible to find somebody for all those tasks, Ivan
"shanghaied" me and I got installed to take care of that. The agreement been
that only council and HiFo unanimously can accept any new position of core
techstaff (excl the subsystem maintainers which maemo admin coordinator can
appoint without their prior approval, basically because HiFo has proven own
inability to handle any such task, despite me initially insisting in them
taking responsibility instead of me), and both HiFo and council on their own
can reject appointments at the time they are forwarded to those entities for
approval, and after that they can suspend any techstaff member any time, based
on clear rationale and reason for belief made publicly accepted that a real
threat is coming from such techstaff member. When I shall step down from my
position as maemo admin manager, then regarding "how maemo works" there must
be a successor agreed upon by both HiFo and particularly council, otherwise I
CANNOT step down. (see below why not even that might suffice, regarding unclear
state of handover from Nemein to maemo community).
Even while I'm tempted to retire, considering the uncooperative and actually
incorrect and culpable behavior of HiFo, particularly Chemist, alienating and
bewildering all techstaff and rest of council by ignoring our rules for
maintenance, our concerns, and doing an unassigned sneaky stealth job
tampering with techstaff responsibility domain without discussing that publicly
or at least in official techstaff admin channels beforehand, so that at very
least techstaff could relax and delegate their duty of e.g. securing
uninterrupted backup (though again, this responsibility can't get easily
delegated). Rather HiFo comes to techstaff at large with a "don't worry"
catchphrase and abuses their position and the liberal maintenance management
to do "secret" negotiations with parts of techstaff, here talking Falk into
something he didn't even consider that it might not already have been
discussed in a normal way with rest of techstaff and council (according to what
Falk reported to me). In the end it been up to me to do the right thing to
heal this mess and ask Falk to send a info mail to all techstaff and publicly
report about that skunk work done by Chemist, in last Thuesday's council
meeting, so council and community are finally officially informed. While HiFo (as
usual) left techstaff, council, and thus community without any notice about
what's going on, denying all best common practice of teamwork and peer review
and blatantly ignoring the agreements between them and council and techstaff,
the maintenance rules, and the democratic structures in maemo community at
large.
There's been a clear agreement between HiFo and council that HiFo does NOT
deal with any technical and/or organizational aspects of infra maintenance.
Seems current HiFo and particularly Chemist doesn't care or is willing to
violate such agreement, thus putting the carefully balanced maemo
organizational structure at peril.
The communication failure and trespassing of responsibility domains is clearly
on HiFo side in this case, and I conceive this request of yours regarding my
dismissal inappropriate and in line with this communication failure of HiFo,
smelling like targeted towards a shift away from long established and
community-approved democratic structures and towards an almighty HiFo that
thinks it has the power to control everything on own discretion and not being
obliged to search for support/feedback/approval from community in their
decisions, something that community been concerned about regarding HiFo from
very beginning of discussions about HiFo foundation.
This together with recent efforts to abolish HiFo and replace it by an e.V.
that's not even been elected by community and outright denies any authority of
well established maemo council actually rises severe concerns on my side and I
can't and must not support this.
>
> Please can you work with the tech staff to complete any handover, and
> disable your access.
(I *am* part of techstaff, see above)
"*Complete* handover"? To *whom*? I didn't even know any handover started yet.
I don't even know of any *planned* handover. Neither do I see anybody fit for
the task (yes, a sad situation I tried to relieve but couldn't find anybody
willing to dedicate the needed amount of learning and working hours and
availability/visibility by community [and yes, acceptance in community] to it)
"Disable your access"? So you want to dismiss me not only from role as maemo
admin coordinator, but also from role as one of the techstaff sysops (and
implicitly maintainers)? That's great¡<-irony tag!> Please deliver rationale
for that step. (Not implying I'd acknowledge any power in HiFo to do so,
without public discussion)
And for the record: de jure, maemo.org still is handled by Nemein who granted
root access to Falk and me, to help in administration (soft assets). Also the
server hardware been transferred to IPHH by Nemein and with support of Nokia
(who paid for the shipping) but afaik the server isn't property of HiFo yet
since it never been handed over officially to HiFo, it either is owned by Nemein
still, or by Nokia, or maybe even by Falk who received it at IPHH.
I'm just saying this to make clear that my role as admin coordinator got
suggested by former HiFo member Ivan and _got_accepted_ by Nemein. With
accepting this duty I also accepted legal responsibility for the soft and hard
assets, and thus I can't simply hand over this role to whomever and shrug it
away, my liability for maemo safety would stay.
> We hope you'll find other ways to continue to contribute to the
> community, for which you've done so much, and - on a personal note - I
> hope we can work together in future.
Well, I dunno if you find ways to work together with techstaff in the future, I
don't even know what's been your problem in doing so during the recent past.
Anyway please note that no "working together" between techstaff and HiFo is
supposed to be part of how maemo works. HiFo is responsible for money and
contracts (to put it simple), techstaff is responsible for securing and
maintenance of the infra, and council is responsible for decisions about all
that. Any HiFo cooperation is with council. Any techstaff cooperation is with
council.
>
> Many thanks again,
You'll excuse my refusal to thank you for that.
>
> Andrew
/jOERG
--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml
http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German)
> On 28 February 2014 06:57, joerg Reisenweber <joerg@openmoko.org> wrote:
> > OK, you say HiFo is doing system administration on maemo servers now,
> > either you or some proxy? Fine, I'm pondering to step down from that
> > position then,
Maybe you missed the irony tags? Or did you purposely edit them out by picking
this quote without giving context?
For the record: I'm NOT fine with HiFo doing system administration. See below
for reasons, why.
And obviously 2/3 of council and all of core techstaff isn't as well. Core
techstaff (see below) actually isn't happy with how HiFo acted and still does
act, and mood is to rather stop volunteering in maemo than to participate in
what HiFo seems pushing to establish here. You already managed to alienate a
few maintainers and supporters who actually drew that consequence and
resigned.
>
> Joerg, on behalf of the Hildon Foundation Board, I'd like to thank you
> for your efforts in the continued operation of maemo.org since Nokia
> stepped back. Without your work, we wouldn't be here today; nor have a
> tech staff who has been able to pick up where Nemein left off.
>
> There has, unfortunately, been an air of aggravation between the
> Foundation and you for the past few months, something for which I
> don't want to ascribe any blame. The Board recognises that the
> relationship has degraded,
well, any good relations between me and HiFo never been a part of my job
description for the position as maemo administration manager. Regardless of
the lack of any 'official' mandatory relations between maemo admin manager and
HiFo, see below.
> and thinks the immediate and ongoing
> assistance you've provided with regards to maemo.org system
> administration has run its course,
You're free to think that. It's however neither relevant nor correct. See
below.
> as the tech staff team is now well
> established.
That's a severe misconception.
1) there is no "well established techstaff team", basically techstaff team
consists of three people: Xes, Falk, and me. Then we have a (much too small)
number of subsystem maintainers, like chemist (tmo) and Ivaylo (builder
complex) and Christian (repos), who are considered wider techstaff. It seems
this lack of understanding about such facts showing in HiFo's move and
statement here tells a lot about why HiFo shouldn't interfere with techstaff
duties and infra maintenance (which it nevertheless does *second* time here
and now, during a few weeks)
2) any such techstaff team basically doesn't have *any* business with HiFo -
thus *my* relation to HiFo as member and organizational lead of techstaff team
is absolutely irrelevant.
3) my role as maemo administration manager/coordinator is not only to lead
techstaff and to find and introduce new maintainers and sysops and coordinate
their activities, I'm also the one point of responsibility for "keeping the
keys", read: deciding and overseeing who gets access to maemo infra on which
level, and thus securing integrity of maemo.org and defending it from any
threat. This task isn't one that eventually is accomplished.
From a maemo community organizational perspective HiFo (or rather council and
you) once were responsible to find somebody for all those tasks, Ivan
"shanghaied" me and I got installed to take care of that. The agreement been
that only council and HiFo unanimously can accept any new position of core
techstaff (excl the subsystem maintainers which maemo admin coordinator can
appoint without their prior approval, basically because HiFo has proven own
inability to handle any such task, despite me initially insisting in them
taking responsibility instead of me), and both HiFo and council on their own
can reject appointments at the time they are forwarded to those entities for
approval, and after that they can suspend any techstaff member any time, based
on clear rationale and reason for belief made publicly accepted that a real
threat is coming from such techstaff member. When I shall step down from my
position as maemo admin manager, then regarding "how maemo works" there must
be a successor agreed upon by both HiFo and particularly council, otherwise I
CANNOT step down. (see below why not even that might suffice, regarding unclear
state of handover from Nemein to maemo community).
Even while I'm tempted to retire, considering the uncooperative and actually
incorrect and culpable behavior of HiFo, particularly Chemist, alienating and
bewildering all techstaff and rest of council by ignoring our rules for
maintenance, our concerns, and doing an unassigned sneaky stealth job
tampering with techstaff responsibility domain without discussing that publicly
or at least in official techstaff admin channels beforehand, so that at very
least techstaff could relax and delegate their duty of e.g. securing
uninterrupted backup (though again, this responsibility can't get easily
delegated). Rather HiFo comes to techstaff at large with a "don't worry"
catchphrase and abuses their position and the liberal maintenance management
to do "secret" negotiations with parts of techstaff, here talking Falk into
something he didn't even consider that it might not already have been
discussed in a normal way with rest of techstaff and council (according to what
Falk reported to me). In the end it been up to me to do the right thing to
heal this mess and ask Falk to send a info mail to all techstaff and publicly
report about that skunk work done by Chemist, in last Thuesday's council
meeting, so council and community are finally officially informed. While HiFo (as
usual) left techstaff, council, and thus community without any notice about
what's going on, denying all best common practice of teamwork and peer review
and blatantly ignoring the agreements between them and council and techstaff,
the maintenance rules, and the democratic structures in maemo community at
large.
There's been a clear agreement between HiFo and council that HiFo does NOT
deal with any technical and/or organizational aspects of infra maintenance.
Seems current HiFo and particularly Chemist doesn't care or is willing to
violate such agreement, thus putting the carefully balanced maemo
organizational structure at peril.
The communication failure and trespassing of responsibility domains is clearly
on HiFo side in this case, and I conceive this request of yours regarding my
dismissal inappropriate and in line with this communication failure of HiFo,
smelling like targeted towards a shift away from long established and
community-approved democratic structures and towards an almighty HiFo that
thinks it has the power to control everything on own discretion and not being
obliged to search for support/feedback/approval from community in their
decisions, something that community been concerned about regarding HiFo from
very beginning of discussions about HiFo foundation.
This together with recent efforts to abolish HiFo and replace it by an e.V.
that's not even been elected by community and outright denies any authority of
well established maemo council actually rises severe concerns on my side and I
can't and must not support this.
>
> Please can you work with the tech staff to complete any handover, and
> disable your access.
(I *am* part of techstaff, see above)
"*Complete* handover"? To *whom*? I didn't even know any handover started yet.
I don't even know of any *planned* handover. Neither do I see anybody fit for
the task (yes, a sad situation I tried to relieve but couldn't find anybody
willing to dedicate the needed amount of learning and working hours and
availability/visibility by community [and yes, acceptance in community] to it)
"Disable your access"? So you want to dismiss me not only from role as maemo
admin coordinator, but also from role as one of the techstaff sysops (and
implicitly maintainers)? That's great¡<-irony tag!> Please deliver rationale
for that step. (Not implying I'd acknowledge any power in HiFo to do so,
without public discussion)
And for the record: de jure, maemo.org still is handled by Nemein who granted
root access to Falk and me, to help in administration (soft assets). Also the
server hardware been transferred to IPHH by Nemein and with support of Nokia
(who paid for the shipping) but afaik the server isn't property of HiFo yet
since it never been handed over officially to HiFo, it either is owned by Nemein
still, or by Nokia, or maybe even by Falk who received it at IPHH.
I'm just saying this to make clear that my role as admin coordinator got
suggested by former HiFo member Ivan and _got_accepted_ by Nemein. With
accepting this duty I also accepted legal responsibility for the soft and hard
assets, and thus I can't simply hand over this role to whomever and shrug it
away, my liability for maemo safety would stay.
> We hope you'll find other ways to continue to contribute to the
> community, for which you've done so much, and - on a personal note - I
> hope we can work together in future.
Well, I dunno if you find ways to work together with techstaff in the future, I
don't even know what's been your problem in doing so during the recent past.
Anyway please note that no "working together" between techstaff and HiFo is
supposed to be part of how maemo works. HiFo is responsible for money and
contracts (to put it simple), techstaff is responsible for securing and
maintenance of the infra, and council is responsible for decisions about all
that. Any HiFo cooperation is with council. Any techstaff cooperation is with
council.
>
> Many thanks again,
You'll excuse my refusal to thank you for that.
>
> Andrew
/jOERG
--
() ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org - against proprietary attachments
(alas the above page got scrapped due to resignation(!!), so here some
supplementary links:)
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil.shtml
http://www.nonhtmlmail.org/campaign.html
http://www.georgedillon.com/web/html_email_is_evil_still.shtml
http://www.gerstbach.at/2004/ascii/ (German)
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